Page 62 of The Friend Zone Experiment

“Morning,” said Ket Hau. He glanced pointedly at the clock.It was quarter to nine, more than an hour later than Ket Siong would usually have got up.

Ket Siong was too groggy to sense danger. He made a grunt that could have been a greeting and went into the narrow galley kitchen to make himself coffee.

Ket Hau joined him to wash his cereal bowl. He dried the bowl on a tea towel and put it in the dish drainer, eyeing Ket Siong as he stirred his Nescafé, yawning.

“Ma says you left kind of suddenly last night,” said Ket Hau. He’d still been at the office when Ket Siong had left to check on Renee. “Was everything OK with what’s her name—the Tan girl?”

“Who?” Ket Siong said, when his phone buzzed in the back pocket of his jeans.

He didn’t usually keep his phone on himself, but it had struck him, as he dragged himself out of bed, that perhaps Renee might text this morning.

There was no reason she should be in touch, of course. She was a busy person. She would be on her way to work, if not there already.

Still. She had texted last night, out of the blue. There was no harm in being prepared.

As it turned out, the message wasn’t from Renee.

Clarissa says OK to meet, so long as I’m there too. We’re free on Friday if that works for you. 10 am?

Ket Siong replied:

That works. Thanks, Alicia. Where do you want to meet?

He emerged into a silence so thick with meaning it was nearly tangible. Ket Hau was looking at him.

“What?” said Ket Siong.

“Nothing,” said his brother. “I was just asking about last night. Went OK? Didn’t see you when you came back.”

“We had a late dinner,” said Ket Siong absently.

Alicia suggested meeting at the café at Foyles. He texted back to agree.

“I was thinking,” said Ket Hau, when nothing further was forthcoming. “We’re definitely filing this case on Thursday—the other side won’t give us any more extensions—so I’m planning to take leave on Friday. We could do a day out with Ma? I was thinking of taking her to New Malden. We could have Korean food, stock up on sesame oil or whatever. You know that kdrama she’s into, with her third son? They eat a lot of barbeque on the show.”

Ma’s “third son” was an exquisite young Korean man who was in the process of transitioning from being in a boy band to an acting career. Ket Hau was the only one who tormented her sometimes by calling him her long-distance boyfriend.

“I know you have classes from four o’clock, but we should be done in good time,” said Ket Hau.

“I’m meeting someone on Friday morning,” said Ket Siong.

Staring at his phone wouldn’t magically manifest a text from Renee. On the same principle as the watched kettle that doesn’t boil, it was more likely she’d text if hedidn’tlook at his phone.

He’d just decided to put the phone on top of the wardrobe, so he wouldn’t be tempted to keep checking it, when he realised his brother was speaking.

“What?” said Ket Siong.

Ket Hau took a deep breath. His expression was that of a man pushed beyond endurance. “Siong. As Encik Thiyagu used to say”—this was the discipline teacher at their secondary school, a man with whom Ket Hau had had considerably more to do than Ket Siong—“do some more and you will get two tight slaps. Can you put down your phone for five seconds and talk to me like a human being?”

“Sorry, Ko,” said Ket Siong. He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “It was a late night.”

His brother rarely ever lost his patience with Ket Siong. Itseemed to have wrong-footed Ket Hau almost as much as Ket Siong. He expelled his breath in a theatrical sigh.

“You didn’t even notice how good I’m being,” he complained. “Didn’t try to find out who you saw for dinner, didn’t ask where you spent the night. What’s the point of virtue? There’s no reward.”

“Where I spent…” Blood mounted Ket Siong’s face. “I spent it here! You saw me. I came out of our room.”

Ket Hau shrugged. “I only woke up at eight. How do I know? Maybe you sneaked in earlier, like last time.